It is 9:45 a.m., and I’m about to head to my first class of the day when alarms begin to go off in my residence hall.

It’s not that big of a deal for me to get my stuff together because I’m leaving for my 10 o’clock class anyways. I exit my room and the halls are empty and there is virtually no movement from inside the other rooms on my floor.

As I walk down the stairs to exit the building, there are only three or four people evacuating the building with me — and I’m not even evacuating; I’m just going to class.

When I get outside of the building, about 10 other students are standing in the parking lot with pajamas on, still weary from being woken up by the alarm.

I head on to my class, not thinking anything else of the drill.

Later on in the day, a friend tells me that we had failed the fire drill and would have to have another one in the near future.

On Oct. 14, my roommate and I received a letter from the Department of Residence Life informing us we had failed the fire drill and another drill will take place soon.

Do not get me wrong, I believe safety should be the most important job of the Department of Residence Life and a fire drill is an important way to ensure that safety.

As a resident, I feel there are a few problems with the strategy they have for handling the failed fire drills.

The first is the timing of the drills. The one I was around for took place at 9:45 a.m. If I still had to get dressed or put books in my book bag, I would not have risked being late for my class to rush out of a building that was not even on fire. And if I had been late for my class because of a fire drill, I would have been pretty angry with the Department of Resident Life.

The second is the proverbial “crying wolf” effect.  The next time I hear the fire alarm go off, I will not be in any hurry because my first thought is goint to be that it is a drill and does not matter. This thought process would put me in more danger than a failed fire drill.

I believe the Department of Residence Life should reevaluate the way they approach fire drills. How are we supposed to pass a test we never had notes on? I never realized there were instructions on what to do in case of a fire on the back of our dorm room doors. The residents should know what to do in advance and where to find instructions on what to do.

They should also reevaluate the timing of the drills. If there were a drill at 9:45 a.m., then obviously nobody would be super fast to react and evacuate. And at that time, most of the residents have started their classes for the day and are not aorund the residence halls. Maybe they should have it around 3 p.m. or early in the night so that students are more likely to evacuate the building and have a true practice run at evacuating the buildings. There would also be a larger amount of students in the residence halls.

Obviously my argument is not the most logical from the safety side of view. I think other students and I should try to avoid having my point of view about this and take every drill seriously because the Department of Residence Life does have ourbest interest in mind. And if we pass a drill, then we won’t have to be woken up by those annoying alarms anymore.

In the end, it will take a team effort between the Department of Residence Life and the students to keep the res halls safe. With more strategic drills and more cooperation from students during drills, when an actual emergency occurs we will be ready for it.